Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

 

Gen  14:18-20

Ps 110

1 Cor 11:23-26

Luke 9:11b-17

 

Jesuits are described as contemplatives in action.  Unlike our Carthusian brothers who live in monastic cloister and silence, contemplating the word of God, we move around a lot.  My mom used to carefully erase my old address and phone number before putting the new one in her address book.  After a few years she simply used an old sticky note, knowing that the info wouldn’t apply for too long. Jerome Nadal described a  Jesuit’s cloister is the highway.  Our oftentimes mobile work drives our prayer life and our prayer life, oftentimes entered into while on the move,  drives our work.  Overall, action seems to trump contemplation most of the time.  But, a feast such as the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ reminds us of the contemplative side of our lives.  Not just Jesuit lives.  But the lives of all believers. 

 

The Solemnity of Corpus Christi pulls us into the contemplative because it is an abstract feast that doesn’t recall a specific event.  The Church’s liturgical calendar is crammed with solemnities and feasts—Christmas, Easter, The Ascension, The Annunciation.  They recall specific events in the history of salvation, feasts that recall specific moments in the history of the world.   They are events with a narrative flow.  There is a story that is told and retold. 

 

We can place ourselves in the action and participate in the narrative.   We can close our eyes and, with only a little imagination, see the events unfold on an internal movie screen.  However, on Corpus Christi we have to sit in silence.  There is no script.  There is no “story line.”  We are called to contemplation.  We don’t contemplate an event in the life of Jesus.  We contemplate the gift of Christ truly and substantially present in the Eucharist.  It is almost overwhelming to know that is Christ truly present in the bread and wine that we receive. It is overwhelming to recall Christ present in the Eucharist that we adore on the altar. 

 

The Real Presence is a stumbling block for some.  They can understand symbol. They can understand sign.  They can understand metaphor.  They simply can’t understand, or perhaps refuse to understand real.  The bread of life appears in the three readings and the psalm.

 

Mentioned in the first reading from Genesis Melchizedek is a mysterious figure. There is no history about him, there is no genealogy tracing his descent.  All other references to Melchizedek come from this single mention in Genesis. 

 

The reading from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians includes the words of consecration; the words, the formula, the action, that bring us here daily.  Elaborating on these words, trying to explain them in greater depth would be gilding the lily. Listen to them carefully at the consecration in a few minutes.They are self-explanatory.   

 

The feeding of the multitude from little is a challenge.  How did it happen?   What were the physics, the chemistry, or the economics of such a miraculous event?  How is not the relevant question. The importance of this gospel narrative is that when we are hungry and thirsting on the journey of our lives, Christ is present to us in the Eucharist.  He is there to restore and refresh us. 

 

We just heard in the Gospel reading, “they all ate until they had enough.”  The feeding of the multitude from very little, reminds us—it was in fact a preview of what was to come—that from the small piece of bread that He broke the night before He died Jesus has nourished—and will continue to nourish—untold billions generously and completely.  The Body and Blood of Christ is an unending source of nourishment, sustenance, and comfort. 

 

The only thing we can do on this feast is to sit in awe and contemplate this great gift.  The only thing we need do is to receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord; and then continue on the journey. 

 

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Photos are from the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration in Vermont.  The superiors have been very generous in allowing me to photograph while up there.  These were taken on the memorable day when the prior asked me to shoot an entire Mass.  Don't know how many hundreds of shots I took but it took a long time to edit.  

 

The vessels from Mass sitting on a shelf between the sacristy and the sanctuary.

The pinnacle of the Mass.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Fr. Jack, SJ, MD